Professor Chronotis in an Exciting Adventure with the Autons
by carlgluftgmail.com
Summary: On his way back to St. Cidd's after the Time War and Gallifrey's Return, the Professor has an unexpected adventure.
1. Chapter 1

No one seemed to notice that a new door appeared upon the wall of the old building in central London. All those people in their black taxi cabs and red double decker busses completely ignored the blue door marked "New and Used Books" suddenly materializing between a cafe and bakery.

The door opened and an old man with grey hair and beard in a tweed suit stepped out. Closing the door behind him, he took a rather comical double take, donned a pair of spectacles' and said to himself, "A bookshop door? This won't do at all. A Cambridge don's rooms can't have a door marked 'New and Old Books'. I shouldn't have let them give you that Mark Three upgrade. Nothing has worked right since."

The man looked about the busy street, and said, "This is definitely not Cambridge. London, I would say. Early twenty-first century for certain. Let's see. I need milk. Can't have tea with out milk."

The old Professor strolled down the street, looking at each door, muttering, "Can't get milk there."

So intent was this Professor to find a shop that sold milk, he was oblivious to the small army of constables converging just down the block. Once he finally arrived at the shop bustling with with constables, all he had to say was, "I can get milk here!"

The Professor wasn't a very large man, and he was able to easily squeeze himself into the crowded shop. Within, several constables were trying to forcibly restrain a belligerent man.

"Excuse me," said the Professor, "I need to get to the milk behind you."

Ignoring the old man, a constable gave his captive a great pull, and with a loud "pop" his head came off.

"Blimey!" cried another constable, "You pulled his head clean off, Tom!"

There was no blood, nor mess. The head simply rolled along the floor like a shop window dummy's while the body continued to thrash about.

"What do we do?" asked constable Tom.

"We should do what I usually do in situations like this," Professor. "Run!"


	2. Chapter 2

Despite his age, the Professor ran sprightly out of the shop. He ran about a quarter of mile and then suddenly stopped. A young woman who also fled from the shop bar relief right into him.

"Careful, grandad!" cried the girl with pretty green eyes and straight, dark red hair. "I was following you. It was your idea to run for it."

"And rightly so, my dear," said the Professor.

"What's with the possessed shop window dummy?" she asked. "And what was it doing in a grocery?"

"Probably buying milk."

"What for?"

"Tea, perhaps. That's why I was looking for milk. Oh dear! I left there without purchasing any."

"I don't mean what does it need milk for. It's more of a matter of why would a shop window dummy be buying milk."

"That's a good question! I imagine since buying milk is a very ordinary act, and it looked so human before its head popped off, it must have been shopping to look ordinary."

"Why would it do that?"

"It's easier to invade a world when you are already entrenched there before the hostilities begin."

"Do you mean that this shop window dummy is from outer space."

"Of course, my dear," said the old Professor. "You don't have intelligent shop window dummies native to Earth, do you."

"No, of course not," said the young lady. "I'm Jane Donning, by the way. Who are you?"

"I'm the Professor."

"Professor who?"

"Oh no, that would be silly," laughed the Professor. Professor Who, indeed."

"You know, Professor," Jane said with a thoughtful look on her face. "My dad mentioned that there have been people disappearing around London lately."

"Is your father a constable?"

"No. He's a Royal Army major."

"Must be serious is the army is investigating this."

"If the alien shop window dummies are behind this, it'll be very serious indeed."

"Until that Chan's head popped off, there would have been no indication of he was anything other than human. Perhaps these creatures' are abducting people inorder to replace them."

"How could we tell if someone was one of these aliens?"

"Look at this, Jane," said the Professor ad he stared st a newspaper at a news stand. A picture of a spaceship over London dominated its cover page with the title, "Alien Hoax".

"Oh, that's just more fake news," said Jane with disgust.

"Perhaps that's what the editors of this paper want us to believe. We didn't have the 'London Inquisitor' back in the seventies and eighties."

"It's some new tabloid."

"I think we should pay the 'London Inquisitor' a visit."

"Hell, yeah!" shouted Jane pulling out her mobile phone. "I got their London address here."

Suddenly there was a roar of engines overhead as an alien-looking spacecraft cruised over central London.

"Definitely not a hoax," said the Professor. "Come along, Jane."


	3. Chapter 3

It was toward evening that the Professor and Jane reached the 'London Inquisitor's" building.

"Look at that massive parabolic antenna!" cried the Professor as he and Jane cautiously approached the building. "I need to take a look at it."

"But it's on the roof, Professor," said Jane. "How will we get up there?"

"Stairs, I should imagine," said the Professor as he drew a metal wand with a red dial on its base. He approached a set of doors on the back of the building, waved the wand over the l lock, and pulled the door open.

"Nice magic wand," said Jane.

"It's a sophisticated scientific instrument'" corrected the Professor, "not a magic wand. I borrowed it from a friend of mine during the War. I ought to get it back to him someday."

A set if stairs near the door led all the way up to the roof. The Professor and Jane entered a penthouse near the antenna with the help of the Professor's 'sophisticated scientific instrument. Inside was a small but complex machine. Obered in flashing lights and alien symbols.

"Computers!" cried the Professor. "I hate them."

"I love computers," said Jane," but I can't make sense of these symbols."

"You can't?" asked the Professor looking deep into Jane's eyes. "Are you sure? Try again."

"They're not even Roman letters," said Jane as she looked at the screen and keyboard. "Waist a minute! The symbols changed.I can read them. How did that happen?"

"I suppose tor just underestimate yourself, my dear," said the Professor with a big grin on his face. Suddenly, he turned around to the door. "Hide! Someone's coming!"

As soon as the Professor and Jane ducked behind a bank of computer severs, the door opened and in stepped a man in a suit.

"What are you doing, Professor?" asked Jane. But it was too late, for the old man stood up, dusted off his old tweed jacket and approached the man.

"Take me to your leader," said the Professor with an impish smile.

"Professor," whispered herself, "You are an idiot."


	4. Chapter 4

Silently, the man in the suit pointed at the door. The Professor walked out onto the roof, the silent man following him.

"What is he doing?" Jane asked herself as she went to follow them. She kept to a safe distance and followed them all the way down the stairs. They went to the very bottom of the stairwell, into the basement. Passing through several doors. They entered a massive room with a giant tank within.

Enormous tentacles flayed about from the open top of the tank. A deep gurgling sound came from it. Jane thought she hear English words in that dreadful noise.

"Who am ?" asked the Professor. "I've been known by many names in my sixteen thousand years of lives, but 'Professor' shall be adequate for our dealing. You, too, Great Old One have been known by many names, and I know you by the name that binds!

"I have long been the leper of the worshipful and ancient law of my people, and I am well versed in the ancient laws. According to article fifty seven of the most recent proclamation, you are prohibited from destroying a level five world like this one, especially since it didn't do anything to you. It was my people, not humans, responsible for the destuction of your world during the War. You can take it up with them if you can find them."

Several other me began to file into the room. The monsters tentacles began to flat about violently

"Easy, Professor," whispered Jane from behind cover.

"I am now going to tell you what you are going to do," said the Professor bravely despite the encroaching forces. "You are going to abandon your plan to repopulate this planet with you and your plastic th talks. You will promptly teleport tjisbody you have created and all your human replicants to your ship and leave this system, never to return again."

"Well," sighed Jane, "it was nice knowing you."

To Jane's suprise, the monster's testicles retreated into the tank, the men stopped dead in their tracks, and in a brilliant flash, disappeared.

"Professor," said Jane as she popped up from behind her cover, "you did it."

"I thought I told you to stay put?" asked the Professor a he turned and left the room.

"And miss that?" asked Jane as she followed him out of the room, out the back door and down the streets of London.

After a while of silence, Jane finally said, "oh come on Professor, are you really that cross with me?"

"No," said the Professor softly.

"Then what's wrong?"

"Where will I ever find milk this late at night?"

"At any twenty-four hour shop?"

"Oh well. Best get back to my rooms."

"What university do you teach at, Professor?"

"Cambridge."

"I don't think you'll make it back there tonight."

"I should do just fine," said the Professor as he reached the bookshop door.

"I've never noticed this bookshop before," said Jane.

"That's because it wasn't here until this afternoon," explained the Professor as they entered a massive bookshop with shelves three storeys tall.

"What are you doing in this bookshop?" asked Jane, following him to a tall platform in the middle of the vast room in which sat a six sides stationary bureau.

"No, no, no," bemoaned the Professor "This is supposed to be the rooms of a Cambridge don, not second rate bookshop."

"You live in a bookshop?" asked Jane as she pulled down an old book from a nearby shelf.

"It's a complicated space/time event," explained the Professor, pulling down one of the hatches of the bizarre bureau, revealing ancient brass controls a la Jules Vernes.,"able to travel to any world, at any point in that world's history."

"It's a bookshop," insisted Jane as she opened the book.

"Why can't it be both?" asked the Professor. "Wait! Don't open that book!"

It was too late. The door outside slammed shut, a cacophony fill the roon, and the whole place toppled about."

The End


End file.
